I've recently diversified into a global corporate entity and as such will be able to offer high quality hi-jinks aboard this Firefly class vessel of a bar. Feel free to pull up a pew and regail us with your tales of outlandish adventure, be it from the core or the outer rim. Only rule here is this: You're all my crew, so you turn on each other, you turn on me.

I say! So this is where the broom cupboard in The Smoking Room leads to!

*Sits down*

A steamfish, you say? Yes I've seen one, near Surtsey on an expedition a few years ago. Swam right up alongside our yacht, we had a devil of a time trying to land the beast. Fully 14 feet long it was I tell you, a long snout-like face with row upon row of viciously sharp teeth and 1/4'' thick scales tougher than the hull of an ironclad, presumeably to insulate itself from the searing temperatures of a sea boiled by an erupting volcano. A school of them could have sunk the entire Channel Fleet upon my honour.

Anyway we managed to ship it aboard our yacht and it was none too pleased, thrashing about like hell and bit the helmsman clean in two before lascerating three of our deckhands with its devilishly sharp scales. At which point we decided to throw it back in, easier said than done under the circumstances, but we managed in the end. We last saw it heading straight back towards the boiling waters directly above the volcano, before it turned about and came straight at us with a view to tearing our hull asunder with the row of spines along its back. We got out of there pretty sharpish I can tell you.

Even now in my nightmares I can see that beast coming at us with malice in its eyes, intent upon sending us to join Davy Jones locker.

Logged

Persons intending to travel by open carriage should select a seat with their backs to the engine, by which means they will avoid the ashes emitted therefrom, that in travelling generally, but particularly through the tunnels, prove a great annoyance; the carriage farthest from the engine will in consequence be found the most desirable.